In an unprecedented report, it urged the Vatican to "immediately remove all known and suspected child sexual abusers from assignment and refer the matter to the relevant law enforcement authorities for investigation and prosecution purposes".
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child also denounced the Church for failing to live up to its repeated pledges to handle abuse complaints internally. It criticised the Vatican for "systematically" placing concerns for its reputation ahead of its responsibility to protect children by failing to remove clergy suspected of molestation.
"The committee expresses serious concern that in dealing with child victims of different forms of abuse, the Holy See has systematically placed preservation of the reputation of the Church and the alleged offender over the protection of child victims," it said.
Committee head Kirsten Sandberg said that despite the Vatican's pledges to adopt a zero-tolerance approach, it was in clear breach of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which it is a signatory.
"The simple answer is yes, they are in breach of the Convention as up to now, because they haven't done all the things that they should have done," Sandberg told reporters.
The report said the Vatican had failed to acknowledge the extent of abuse, nor taken necessary measures to protect children, and had allowed perpetrators to continue with impunity.
It blasted the Vatican's past policy of transferring abusers to new parishes within the same countries, and even across borders, in an attempt to cover up their crimes.
No Catholic bishop has ever been sanctioned by the Vatican for sheltering an abusive priest, and only in 2010 did the Holy See direct bishops to report abusers to police when law enforcement requires it.
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